CBC Junior J-School workshop sparks students' imaginations

"Really inspirational," was how many of the 350 would-be journalists summed up their day long experience at the CBC Vancouver Broadcast Centre on Saturday.

CBC reporters, producers and investigative journalists shared their stories with students in grades 10, 11 and 12. Their tweets ensured that #CBCJrJSchool​ was trending in Canada for most of the day.

During the one-day workshop, students heard first-hand from veteran, award-winning CBC journalists on the changing world of journalism and got an intimate look at how stories are reported.

"It's changed how I look at journalism," said Sebastian from Lord Byng High School.

"It definitely makes a big difference having professionals talk to you about their experiences, talk to you about their path, talk to you about their passions, their techniques, all that sort of stuff. It makes it a lot more real."

Hugh Boyd Secondary School student Sam said he plans on taking journalism next year in his high school.

"It was a cool look inside something I don’t know a lot about yet, but I’m very interested in," he said. "All these reporters and the host...they are all so down to earth."

"They're people too and they have a lot of meaningful things to say. You see them on the TV and they seem larger than life, but really they’re just like anybody else and it’s a really great experience."